Librarian
Benjamin Aldred
They/Them or He/Him
Contact:
Daley Library
801 S. Morgan St.
2-131 LIB
Chicago, IL 60607
801 S. Morgan St.
2-131 LIB
Chicago, IL 60607
(312)413-2594
Introduction
This page is host to a number of historical ward shapefiles for the City of Chicago. These should be compatible with ArcGIS, QGIS or other programs that use .shp file formats. Some of these are produced at UIC, others are mirrored from the University of Chicago for consolidation and preservation purposes. Links are included to recent ward maps from the City of Chicago data portal.
Ward Map Shapefiles
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1931 Ward Map ShapefileCreated at UIC from paper maps using GoogleEarth.
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1947 Ward Map ShapefileCreated at UIC from paper maps using GoogleEarth.
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1961 Ward Map ShapefileCreated at UIC from paper maps using GoogleEarth.
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1986 Ward Map ShapefileCreated by University of Chicago This is the ward map that preceded the 1992 map. The file was generated largely from voting district boundaries (which are numbered by ward) and may consequently contain some minor errors. Christopher Siciliano did a considerable amount of cleaning up of this file.
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1992 Ward Map ShapefileCreated by University of Chicago This map was current from 1992 until 1998, when litigation forced some boundary changes. This file contains accurate straight lines in some places where the corresponding street files have inaccurate crooked lines. The author of this boundary file is Christopher Siciliano. It was edited very slightly in 2001 by George Stachokas.
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1998 Ward Map ShapefileCreated by University of Chicago. This is the ward map for Chicago that was in effect between 1998 and early 2003. The file was derived from the Tiger 1998 voting district file. George Stachokas has edited the file, altering some of the boundaries to make them more closely resemble the boundaries shown in the city of Chicago's published ward maps.
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Ward Boundaries 2003-2015Ward boundaries in Chicago from May 2003 to May 2015, corresponding to the dates when a new City Council is sworn in, based on the immediately preceding elections. Neither this description nor the dataset should be relied upon in situations where legal precision is required.
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Ward Boundaries 2015-2023Via Chicago Data Portal. Ward boundaries in Chicago from May 2015 to May 2023, corresponding to the dates when a new City Council is sworn in, based on the immediately preceding elections. Neither this description nor the dataset should be relied upon in situations where legal precision is required.
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1847-1923 Ward Map Shapefile PackageProduced by UChicago Justice Project https://justiceproject.uchicago.edu/